(First off, let me apologize for the banner pic; I know it’s lame, but you try Googling “veep debate” and finding anything other than a million billion pictures of Joe Biden and fucking Paul Ryan. It seems inconsequential, but I find stills vastly superior to posters. Maybe I’m the only one.)
Tonight’s episode of Veep finds Selina in a bad way. She’s gotten a pixie haircut that no one seems to like, an eye twitch that she can’t get rid of, and her appearance in the debate makes her come off like a totalitarian, with the way she keeps repeating the word “repel.”
Debates are fertile ground for politically-minded shows, as Parks and Recreation proved in its fourth season episode “The Debate.” Unfortunately, Veep seems content to do little more than pick at low-hanging fruit. There are some narrative elements to the half hour that cleverly subvert expectations, but ultimately it was a sadly predictable installment of one of television’s smartest, nastiest shows.
Selina is pitted against former Secretary of Defense, George Maddox, Minnesota governor Danny Chung, former baseball manager Joe Thornhill, and young congressman Owen Pierce. Pierce, while not given many lines, nonetheless generates most of the episode’s laughs. He’s clearly a punching bag, and his dependance on his glass of water is a reference to Marcu Rubio that can’t even be called “thinly veiled.” And his reliance on a prop – in this case, a sink stopper – perfectly encapsulated the inanity and childishness that Washington can devolve into with depressing frequency.
The nicest surprise of “Debate” is that George Maddox, Selina’s chief rival, completely botches his time on stage. Her real competition is Joe Thornhill, who is more or less a walking soundboard. Congressman Furlong (Dan Bakkedahl) does a good impression of Thornhill: “Baseball.” That’s a good way to shift gears, and it’s refreshingly unexpected this late in the season.
Dan is back as well, fresh from his nervous breakdown and sporting a regulation Depression Beard. (Kent Davison tells him to shave because he lacks “the facial gravitas for a beard.” As a beard wearer myself, I want to say, thank for sticking up for us, Veep!) Dan is suspiciously polite and friendly, even offering to get Mike coffee, but his old self comes rushing back after Maddox’s lackluster performance. “Go fuck yourself, Jack and the Freakstalk,” he tells Jonah, smiling the whole time. It’s good to have the ol’ heartless bastard back.
Overall, “Debate” was a decent, if forgettable, episode of Veep. Even at its worst – which “Debate” was not – Veep is still compulsively watchable, and if it sounds like I’m rationalizing, well, I kinda am. Veep is the most gleefully, innovatively profane show on the air right now, and at times it’s capable of producing genuinely hysterical television. “Debate,” alas, was not one of those times.
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